1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to lithographic projection apparatus and more particularly to a method for calibrating position measuring systems in a lithographic projection apparatus.
2. Background of the Related Art
The term xe2x80x9cpatterning structurexe2x80x9d as here employed should be broadly interpreted as referring to means that can be used to endow an incoming radiation beam with a patterned cross-section, corresponding to a pattern that is to be created in a target portion of the substrate; the term xe2x80x9clight valvexe2x80x9d can also be used in this context. Generally, the said pattern will correspond to a particular functional layer in a device being created in the target portion, such as an integrated circuit or other device (see below). Examples of such patterning structure include:
A mask. The concept of a mask is well known in lithography, and it includes mask types such as binary, alternating phase-shift, and attenuated phase-shift, as well as various hybrid mask types. Placement of such a mask in the radiation beam causes selective transmission (in the case of a transmissive mask) or reflection (in the case of a reflective mask) of the radiation impinging on the mask, according to the pattern on the mask. The first object table ensures that the mask can be held at a desired position in the incoming radiation beam, and that it can be moved relative to the beam if so desired.
A programmable mirror array held by a structure referred to as first object table. An example of such a device is a matrix-addressable surface having a viscoelastic control layer and a reflective surface. The basic principle behind such an apparatus is that (for example) addressed areas of the reflective surface reflect incident light as diffracted light, whereas unaddressed areas reflect incident light as undiffracted light. Using an appropriate filter, the said undiffracted light can be filtered out of the reflected beam, leaving only the diffracted light behind; in this manner, the beam becomes patterned according to the addressing pattern of the matrix-adressable surface. The required matrix addressing can be performed using suitable electronic means. More information on such mirror arrays can be gleaned, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,891 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,193, which are incorporated herein by reference. A frame or first object table may support the programmable mirror array, which may be fixed or movable as required.
A programmable LCD array held by a structure referred to as first object table.
An example of such an array is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,872, which is incorporated herein by reference. As above, the support structure in this case may be embodied as a frame or object table, for example, which may be fixed or movable as required.
For purposes of simplicity, the rest of this text may, at certain locations, specifically direct itself to examples involving a mask and mask table; however, the general principles discussed in such instances should be seen in the broader context of the patterning structure as hereabove set forth.
Lithographic projection apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In such a case, the patterning structure may generate a circuit pattern corresponding to an individual layer of the IC, and this pattern can be imaged onto a target portion (e.g. comprising one or more dies) on a substrate (silicon wafer) that has been coated with a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). In general, a single wafer will contain a whole network of adjacent target portions that are successively irradiated via the projection system, one at a time. In current apparatus, employing patterning by a mask on a mask table, a distinction can be made between two different types of machine. In one type of lithographic projection apparatus, each target portion is irradiated by exposing the entire mask pattern onto the target portion at once; such an apparatus is commonly referred to as a wafer stepper. In an alternative apparatusxe2x80x94commonly referred to as a step-and-scan apparatusxe2x80x94each target portion is irradiated by progressively scanning the mask pattern under the projection beam in a given reference direction (the xe2x80x9cscanningxe2x80x9d direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate table parallel or anti-parallel to this direction; since, in general, the projection system will have a magnification factor M (generally  less than 1), the speed V at which the substrate table is scanned will be a factor M times that at which the mask table is scanned. More information with regard to lithographic devices as here described can be gleaned, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,792, incorporated herein by reference.
In a manufacturing process using a lithographic projection apparatus, a pattern (e.g. in a mask) is imaged onto a substrate that is at least partially covered by a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). Prior to this imaging step, the substrate may undergo various procedures, such as priming, resist coating and a soft bake. After exposure, the substrate may be subjected to other procedures, such as a post-exposure bake (PEB), development, a hard bake and measurement/inspection of the imaged features. This array of procedures is used as a basis to pattern an individual layer of a device, e.g. an IC. Such a patterned layer may then undergo various processes such as etching, ion-implantation (doping), metallization, oxidation, chemo-mechanical polishing, etc., all intended to finish off an individual layer. If several layers are required, then the whole procedure, or a variant thereof, will have to be repeated for each new layer. Eventually, an array of devices will be present on the substrate (wafer). These devices are then separated from one another by a technique such as dicing or sawing, whence the individual devices can be mounted on a carrier, connected to pins, etc. Further information regarding such processes can be obtained, for example, from the book xe2x80x9cMicrochip Fabrication: A Practical Guide to Semiconductor Processingxe2x80x9d, Third Edition, by Peter van Zant, McGraw Hill Publishing Co., 1997, ISBN 0-07-067250-4, incorporated herein by reference.
For the sake of simplicity, the projection system may hereinafter be referred to as the xe2x80x9clensxe2x80x9d; however, this term should be broadly interpreted as encompassing various types of projection system, including refractive optics, reflective optics, and catadioptric systems, for example. The radiation system may also include components operating according to any of these design types for directing, shaping or controlling the projection beam of radiation, and such components may also be referred to below, collectively or singularly, as a xe2x80x9clensxe2x80x9d.
The lithographic apparatus may be of a type having two or more substrate tables (and/or two or more mask tables). In such xe2x80x9cmultiple stagexe2x80x9d devices the additional tables may be used in parallel, or preparatory steps may be carried out on one or more tables while one or more other tables are being used for exposures. Twin stage lithographic apparatus are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,441 and WO 98/40791, incorporated herein by reference. The basic operating principle behind such multi-station apparatus is that, while a first substrate table is at a first station underneath the projection system so as to allow exposure of a first substrate located on that table, a second substrate table can run to a second station, discharge an exposed substrate, pick up a new substrate, perform some initial metrology steps on the new substrate, and then stand by to transfer this new substrate to the first station underneath the projection system as soon as exposure of the first substrate is completed, whence the cycle repeats itself; in this manner, it is possible to achieve a substantially increased machine throughput, which in turn improves the cost of ownership of the machine. It may be even more advantageously to use three or more stations, which perform different processing steps on the substrate to improve the throughput of the apparatus.
In the same way, it is possible to conceive a lithographic projection apparatus having more than one mask table. Such a machine could, for example, be useful in a scenario in which each layer of a die is exposed to images from multiple masks; in that case, the presence of multiple mask tables could significantly improve throughput. In the discussion which follows, the invention may generally be presented in the context of an apparatus having multiple substrate tables. However, it will be appreciated that the discussion is equivalently applicable to an apparatus having multiple mask tables.
In an exemplary multi-station apparatus a position control system will be used to control the position of the substrate table in the apparatus. This system may comprise a first position measuring system for measuring a position of the substrate table at a first station and a second position measuring system for measuring a position of the substrate table at a second station, and any number of further position measuring systems for measuring a position of the substrate table at a corresponding number of further stations. It is very important that these position measuring systems be correlated with a high accuracy because data measured at a particular position on the substrate during the initial metrology steps in the second station will be used at said particular position during exposure in the first station. One of the problems that may occur is that the scaling offset of the first position measuring system at the first station may be different with respect to the scaling offset of the second position measuring system at the second station due to environmental influences. The scaling offset is the ratio between the actual separation of two positions on the substrate table and the derived separation as measured by each position measuring system. In case the scaling offset differs between the first position measuring system and the second position measuring system it is impossible for the position control system to reproduce a position measured at one station at another station with the required accuracy. In a single-station apparatus a scaling offset will not occur because metrology steps and exposure are done at the same station with a single position measuring system.
One aspect of an embodiment of the present invention provides a method for calibrating at least two different position measuring systems that are used to measure a position of an object table in at least two different stations in a lithographic projection apparatus, with respect to each other.
In one embodiment of a method in accordance with the present invention, the calibration method includes:
identifying a set of two or more reference positions of one of said first and second object table with a first detection system and simultaneously measuring those reference positions with a first position measuring system;
identifying the same set of reference positions of said one object table with a second detection system and simultaneously measuring those reference positions with a second position measuring system; and
correlating said first and said second position measuring systems using the measurements of the reference positions.
In the event that there are N object tables and respective stations, where N greater than 2, then the identification step is performed N times, and the correlating step will involve N position measuring systems. By detecting a set of two or more reference positions of said object table and simultaneously measuring the position of said object table with a position measurement system it is possible to determine a scaling offset. By doing this for each of the position measuring systems it is possible to correlate measurements of the different position measuring systems to each other. Detection of a set of two or more reference positions can be accomplished by detecting a set of two or marks present on the plane of the object table with a detection system associated with the first measurement system and one associated with the second measurement system. Other offsets than the scaling offset may be caused by non-linear, higher-order errors in the measuring systems. These higher order errors may be calibrated by correlating the different position measuring systems by multi-degree polynomials using the measurements from multiple reference positions. During the calibration method the object table will be moved such that a sequence of marks on the object table will be detected by the detection systems, so as to identify their reference positions. For this purpose two or more marks can be provided on the object table, or a workpiece (i.e. substrate or mask as appropriate) with two or more marks can be provided to the object table. Each position measuring system measures a displacement (i.e. a reference distance) of the object table in at least the X and Y direction, respectively between detection of the first and the second of the two or more marks. One could also determine the two or more reference positions by detecting an aerial image of one mark projected upon the plane of the object table with two or more detectors provided to said plane. The distance between both detectors will give the reference distance in that case.
By knowing the reference distance in the X direction (Reference DX) between two marks or detectors, and therefore between the two reference positions, the following formula can be used to calculate a relative scaling offset:
Scaling offset(X)=Measured DX/Reference DX
A similar offset can be calculated for the absolute scaling offset in the Y, Z direction and rotations around the X, Y and Z direction. It must be understood that the scaling offset thus calculated can be used to calculate a particular position as a function of a measured value in a particular station. By doing so for each stations, each position measuring system is calibrated. The scaling offset may show a certain drift, such that it may be necessary to calculate the scaling offset more than once, for example for every substrate processed by the apparatus.
One could also calibrate the position measuring systems of a first station (st.1) to that of a second station (st.2) by the following formula, to obtain a relative scaling offset:
Scaling offset(X st.1 to X st.2)=Measured DX(st. 1)/Measured DX(st.2)
An advantage of using a relative scaling offset is that any linear scaling effect, such as thermal expansion of the object table, which increases the distance between the two marks linearly can be taken into account in the correlation procedure. With more than two stations, you can select one station as xe2x80x9cholyxe2x80x9d and correlate all others to that one, or you can correlate any two stations to each other.
According to a further aspect of an embodiment of the present invention there is provided a lithographic projection apparatus including:
a radiation system for supplying a projection beam of radiation;
a first object table for supporting patterning structure, the patterning structure serving to pattern the projection beam according to a desired pattern;
a second object table for holding a substrate; and
a projection system for projecting the patterned beam onto a target portion of the substrate
a first position measuring system for measuring the position of one of said first and second object table;
a first detection system for identifying a reference position of said one object table within the range of said first position measuring system;
a second position measuring system for measuring the position of said one object table; and,
a second detection system for identifying a reference position of said one object table within the range of said second position measuring system; characterized in that said apparatus comprises calculating means connected to said first and said second position measuring system and said first and said second detection system for correlating to each other measurements of said first and said second position measuring system.
Although specific reference has been made hereabove to the use of the apparatus according to the invention in the manufacture of Ics, it should be explicitly understood that such an apparatus has many other possible applications. For example, it may be employed in the manufacture of integrated optical systems, guidance and detection patterns for magnetic domain memories, liquid-crystal display panels, thin-film magnetic heads, etc. The skilled artisan will appreciate that, in the context of such alternative applications, any use of the terms xe2x80x9creticlexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cwaferxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cdiexe2x80x9d in this text should be considered as being replaced by the more general terms xe2x80x9cmaskxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9csubstratexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ctarget portionxe2x80x9d, respectively.